Most of us identify ourselves with what we do or our work. So, if someone asks, “tell me something about yourself,” the immediate answer would be, “I am a Project Manager”, or “I am a Software developer”, “an architect”, A doctor, a lawyer, a homemaker and so on….
The work that we do or have been doing defines us so much that we seldom look at ourselves and ask the real question, “Who am I.” Who we are is much more expansive than what we do; confining our identity to our current job or profession is an enormous disservice we do to ourselves because by doing that, we are closing out on all possibilities. We consciously and unconsciously think of only those things that pertain to our job or profession, leaving out many beautiful things outside. You may be a public servant, but that does not stop you from exploring your creative side, which could be a singer, a poet or anything else that is sitting inside of you. You may be a Software developer, but that does not stop you from wearing a product manager’s hat or even that of an entrepreneur and looking at your work and life from that perspective.
This change of lens helps us expand our horizon of life and helps us embrace what life has to offer to its fullest. It makes us curious to know about things that may be beyond our domain, interact with people from different backgrounds, try our hand at something that has not been explored so far and, most importantly, keeps that child-like enthusiasm alive in us and makes us believe that anything is possible. As a child, every day was a new possibility for me; one day, I would say I wanted to become an accountant, the other day, an engineer and the other day, an auto driver. Perhaps children are always happy because of this belief that anything is possible, and even if it did not happen today, tomorrow is another day where I will try it. Sadly, we are losing that as we grow into adults. It does not mean that everyone should change their jobs or profession, it just means that you live in the possibility that I can be anything, but for this phase of my life, I have chosen to be doing this job or profession, and I will do it as long as it is exciting and fun. The day it starts becoming a drag, I know I can explore and be something else.
Life is too precious to be anything but happy, and we all deserve that 100%…
Such thoughts and ideas are at the core of our emerging leaders program because being a leader is about fully exploring and living who you are so that we can bring out the best in the people we lead.
